Parallel Channels for High Rate UTRAN

Abstract

The method proposed in this paper uses space–time filtering to support parallel channel transmission as an effort to solve two main limitations facing UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN): throughput limitation and capacity limitation at high bit rates. The overall system capacity in the case of a spreading factor of 4 was enhanced by adding four channels, leading to a total physical layer throughput of 6.5 Mbps with a slight reduction in the performance of less than 1 dB for some users, while other users performance remain without any degradation. In another case where a spreading factor 8 was used adding four parallel channels leads to a total throughput of 5.1 Mbps with only 1.5 dB reduction in the performance of some users. Finally in the case of a spreading factor of 16, with a reduction of less than 3 dB in performance, an addition of eight parallel channels leads to a throughput of about 5 Mbps.